Sleeping Ute Mountain

Author's Comments

The mountain is a figure lying on its back. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it - the headdress to the north, the folded arms across the chest, the legs trailing south into the desert floor. From US-491 south of Cortez, the profile reads cleanly, and the best hour to photograph it is the last one before the sun goes down, when the western light rakes across the laccolith and gives the figure dimension it does not have at midday. I want to be careful here. This is a sacred mountain, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe has been clear that it is not to be climbed. The photograph belongs to the long view, the respectful distance, the vantage from the highway shoulder where the figure sits against the western sky and you are simply a passing witness. Winter is when I keep returning. The high desert clears in January in a way it does not in summer, and a dusting of snow on the mountain throws the profile into sharp relief against the pale grass and the pale sky. The crowds, such as they are, do not exist here. You will share the road with a few trucks and the long shadows of fence posts. Bring a longer lens than feels necessary and let the foreground go quiet. The mountain does the work. Your job is to find the moment when the light is honest and the figure is most itself, and to make the photograph without intruding on what the place is.

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